Burndive

by Karin Lowachee

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi; Space Opera

Synopsis

From the author of the acclaimed and bestselling debut novel Warchild comes a new action-packed adventure about a young man's journey into adulthood amid interstellar war.

Release date: October 1, 2003

Publisher: Aspect

Print pages: 432

Sample

 

Ryan Azarcon went to meet his dealer in Austro Station’s richest, busiest shopping district, known to its younger patrons as
the Market—but not for the many tech, clothing, and jewelry shops available. Here in the Market you could buy anything, or
anyone, if you knew where to look or who to kiss.


It was a triple-level open-quad design, airy white and pseudo-sunlit, mocked up with reinforced stained-glass balconies, fluted
ivory columns placed more for decoration than engineering, and hanging sculptures that resembled featureless cranes in flight.
The Market was situated deep within Module 3, where all the wealthy citizens lived and poorer people from the general docksides
and lower modules needed pre-authorized passes to visit. Shops catered specifically to affluent clientele who wanted to parade
their bodies and designer labels—sometimes one and the same—which you couldn’t do from your comps at home.


Ryan himself had designer eyes—two professionally cut, blue-iris jewels—thanks to Eternity Enhancements’ biolabs. That vain
bit of genetic tweaking had been his mother’s decision before he was even born; he felt no need to flaunt them, though he
used his eyes sometimes to unnerve annoying meedees. Dr. Grandma Ramcharan back on Earth said his wide blue stare could strip
bark from a tree and words from a brain, especially when he was peeved. His mother called it “the Azarcon look” (despite the fact his father’s eyes
were brown), not usually as a compliment, since the Captain Father was not exactly well liked in Ms. Mom Lau’s more polite
circles.


Not that the captain cared. And neither did Ryan, who wasn’t so fond of his mother’s associations either.

Tweaked eyes aside, Ryan had naturally inherited his father’s brown hair, which burnished to dark gold if he ever found himself
under a real sun. Three months since returning from a three-year university sojourn on Earth and he still had the beach-sand
color that star-squatting trendiosos paid salons to mimic. Most Austroans only saw beaches in augmented reality progs; it
took cred to get to Earth from this far in the Rim, like it took cred to genetically change the color of a child’s eyes. Cred
was never Ryan’s problem. He had a famous family and a famous smile. The complete exterior workup—a well-dressed skin over
a rather slight frame—resulted in the SendTertain’s latest transcast: Young Azarcon, Austro’s Hot #1 Bachelor.

It was embarrassing, not funny. Especially when rich thirteen-year-olds in the Market eyed him up on deck like he was an item
tagged for sale.


Most of the people recognized him on the white-tiled, fountain-warbling promenade, but he ignored the looks. He had one thing on his mind since returning from Earth in November, since waking up this early goldshift with an itch in his blood and a
long, fed-up sigh:


Silver.

Footsteps going by seemed to tap out the rhythm.

Suck.

Push.

Inhale.

All the ways you could do it.

He flicked his fingers on his thigh in air-guitar patterns as he walked—one step behind his bodyguard Sid, who insisted on
clearing the way in case lady-here or mister-there in their silk suits decided to mob him (not that he ever got mobbed, but
try telling the bodyguard). It was tedious. Sid never had cause to draw his weapon so there seemed no point to the protocol—and
it made things like doing deals exceptionally difficult.


The bodyguard, Marine Corporal Timothy Carl Sidney (sir!), was Admiral Grandpa Ashrafi’s idea, who knew Sid from Earth. Sid
was a pretty accessory, alert as a dog and trained as well as the German shepherds that worked with Hub Command Secret Service
agents at Grandpa’s estate. Sid was friendly when he was officially off the job, but brutal if disobeyed at any time. If Ryan
decided to slip away, the bite out of his hide would make sitting difficult for a week. He’d learned that seven years ago,
when he was twelve.


So he didn’t bitch, just dutifully followed Sid to Macroplay, an overpriced tech shop frequented by everyone from burndivers
to speedkids addicted to the games now popular in cybetoriums across EarthHub. Burndivers never bought off the shelf, though,
just like rich kids looking to suck some Silver never went underdeck. Serious people all had backdoor contacts for illegal
swack, and rich stitches didn’t like to dirty their boots underdeck. It was notorious among certain kids on Austro that you
could get what you wanted from the shadow management at Macroplay.


This was coveted info, strongly guarded. All that seriousness was expensive. Hard-core users were trusted if they could be
depended upon to keep their holes shut; break that trust and unfortunate ailments seemed to crop up on the blabbermouths.
Scandalous overdoses, suicides, those kinds of things. Ryan didn’t think Sid knew, but even if he did, it was another thing
altogether to prove it. The only way he’d found out about the shadow management was a chance discussion with Tyler Coe last month at the actor’s vid premiere. Tyler
always kissed his arse because he was Songlian Lau’s son and Ms. Mom Lau knew everybody in PR on Austro. Public relations
was important to a weed like Tyler and after a couple months back on station, floating adrift without the high, Ryan figured
Tyler could jack him in with some grade-A swack. Call Tyler what you wanted, but at least he was discreet about his bad habits.
And he knew how to avoid Sid.


Ryan fooled around on his comps with enough credibility to convince Sid that he needed an extension for some new aug prog
that hit the market or some ware that was getting a lot of noise on the SendGame. That wasn’t the market he was really interested
in, though.


Sid eyeballed inside Macroplay before passing Ryan through, then stood just outside to case the traffic. Ryan left him to
it and approached the counter where one live body always lingered to cater to customers, despite the infobooths dotting displays
around the wide, techno-Gothic purchase space. Rich stitches didn’t like to swear at inanimate objects when their answers
weren’t promptly forthcoming; cred bought attention and smiles, and the headwired kid behind the main scan recognized Ryan.


“Yo, Raz!”

He smiled. “Hey, Shoe. Is Fara around?”

Shoe moved his gaze left and right but he wasn’t looking at anything Ryan could see. The red eyeband he wore projected data
overlay to the user; it always made Ryan feel as if he were talking to a first-gen holavatar that couldn’t quite interact.


“Fara’s at the back, I’ll cue her,” Shoe said after a couple seconds of interactive burn.

“Thanks, man.”

Usually Shoe required people to go to Fara, but Shoe knew as well as Ryan that Marine Boy Sid would only follow. Here in the
open was less conspicuous, oddly enough.


While Shoe continued to burndive, occasionally squeaking at things only he could see, Ryan leaned his arms on the glass counter
and stared down at the display items—the kind of ware you wore: cameye globes, amateur meedee head-wires, and transcast spike
interfaces for your own Send updates on the public facets of the networx. He usually bought only gameware; he wasn’t much
interested in making statements. Ninety percent of reports on the Send and all of its children networx were detritus, in his
experience. Admittedly he contributed to the sound and fury when his mother forced him to sit interviews at bloody tedious
fashion galas or mutual appreciation awards shows. Which were fine themselves if he didn’t have to talk to transparent people
who wouldn’t care less what he thought if his DNA was different and he happened to be ugly.


Nobody listened to you unless you had more cred than God, or if you murdered some important people, or if you were beautiful
to the right powers (or all three combined). Kingpins, pirates, and status dolls—they were the “Voices of the Galaxy.”


Yawn.

Thankfully Macroplay had loud music scrolling on their wallvids instead of the ever-present political debates that seemed
to consume the Send lately. Invade the strits once and for all, or leave them on their planet? War and more war, as if anything
would ever really change. The Hub would always hate the strits, and the strits would always be alien. He’d heard earfuls at
Admiral Grandpa’s dinner functions back on Earth, forced to nod his head or walk away when his father’s name inevitably came
up.


Shoe and Fara called him Raz because that was his name on the SendGame. Everyone else on Austro Station and in EarthHub as a whole knew him as Songlian Lau’s and Captain Cairo
Azarcon’s son.


It’s not your fault, Sid joked sometimes. Of course it wasn’t his fault that strits, politicos, and deep-space pirates all hated his father. But it was never really a joke since
Marine Boy was, obviously, here for his protection.


He glanced over his shoulder. Sid was still outside, looking at the people who dared walk through the door or mingle across
the balcony in front of other shops. Snipers could be anywhere, apparently, even among women’s lingerie.


When he looked back to the display case Fara had materialized across the counter, nudging Shoe out of the way. She could frighten
anybody at first glance, all black horn-twisted hair and accentuated eyes, a typical meedee concept of a burndiver (which
she was, among other things). Ryan thought she pulled the sudden appearances on purpose.


“Raaaz,” she drawled. Her royal-purple, puff-injetted mouth broke into a banner of a smile.

“My girl,” he said, and leaned across the counter for a kiss.

She put her talon-tipped hand in his hair and parted his lips with her tongue. He felt the usual buzz-sting from her neon-lit
teeth, then the roll of the capsule from her tongue to his, wrapped in a flavor of grape. That was a Fara-only feature reserved
solely for him, since his first exchange two weeks ago. She said he was a good kisser. He slipped the capsule to the inside
of his cheek and kissed her for real, a thank you for this extra charade; he was her only client who had a bodyguard that
would report her if they were caught.


When he leaned back Fara grinned like a ten-cred den ad and rubbed the side of his mouth with a beringed thumb. “You make
me light up inside, kitten. I love it when you don’t shave for a week.”


It took that long for him to grow stubble, nineteen years old or not. She thought that was cute. He was resigned to the opinion
since she wasn’t alone in it and it got him the Silver. He was a hundred seventy centimeters in shoes and slender in build.
Cute was his name from the day he was born, and he’d met enough people who reminded him of that fact (sometimes it worked
to his advantage, but most of the time it irritated him). Still, he found Fara funny, sexy in a borderline repulsive way,
the kind of woman his mother strongly lectured him about.


She always delivered.

“Whatcha gonna buy this time?” she asked, moving on to more prosaic business. It was just business with her, despite the kiss.
Her boyfriend would shoot him, otherwise.


He needed something to make this trip worthwhile to Sid. So he pointed to a new game that he’d had his eye on for a couple
weeks. It was that easy. Once he saw Sid had glanced away he spat out the Silver capsule into his palm and pocketed it in
his pants.


Then it was just a matter of going home so he could sail. Because he’d run out of Silver seventy-two hours ago and seventy-two
hours of unadulterated harping from Ms. Mom Lau about what he ought to do with his life gave him a headache. Rang on his
nerves. So he needed to sail. He kept his hands in his flat front pockets and poked the capsule with his right index finger.


“Why so quiet?” Sid asked as they rewound their way through the perfumed stitches in the Market, toward the central bank of
levs that would take them up to the executive residences.


The lights were brighter on the promenade than in the shop and Ryan squinted, shrugged. “No reason.”

He’d been quiet since returning from Earth. Well, he went out to premieres and parties and Sid shadowed him everywhere, but Sid meant quiet toward him. At home.


Depressed, Sid meant Ryan knew he was worried. So Sid, being Sid, was going to feel around for a specific target to explore.
Because talking always helped, right?


Right.

“Have you heard from Shiri lately?” Sid asked.

Shiri was Ryan’s ex-girlfriend on Earth, from university. He’d met her in his Psychology of Public Opinion class; she was
spritely pretty, moderately smart, and she’d asked him out for a beer at The Clover, a Georgetown pub. She hadn’t known who
he was and even after she found out, she hadn’t much cared. For a Media and Public Affairs major that was certainly different,
but then it was Earth and she hailed from one of the last small communities in some backcountry state like Montana, in America.


It was quaint to hear her accent, to point at her house on an augmap and walk through a replica of her little town and think,
This is so damn far from Austro it’s practically alien. She’d never been in space. The thought of going where you couldn’t breathe “real” air frightened her. He’d thought she was
joking at first. But no. He couldn’t imagine never setting foot on a station, especially with Pax Terra so near Earth. Dirtsiders
were an odd bunch sometimes.


Anyway, after Spring Break in Hong Kong, in his third year, she’d jettisoned him.

You’ve changed, she said.


Whatever the hell that meant. People changed, things never stayed the same like she wished, back there in her minuscule town
with her safe ideas of what the galaxy was like. She was completely clueless about the really of war and selfish, dangerous
idiocy.


Sid thought she was sweet. But of course Sid was from Texas America.

Sure, he’d told Sid. Sweet in an ignorant kind of way.

He missed her, though. Or maybe he missed the lulling simplicity of her life. He missed the sex, of course.

“She hasn’t commed me, if that’s what you mean, and I haven’t commed her. What’s the point?”

Sid raised an eyebrow in his so-called nonjudgmental way. Maybe it wasn’t judgment, but it was opinion. “I thought you two
were still friends.”


“Life goes on.”

He felt Sid look at him sidelong. He knew he wasn’t fooling anybody.

Problem with having the same bodyguard since you were twelve: you knew each other too damn well.

He did miss the way she used to hug his neck and kiss his temple, and hold his hand when they crossed roads because, she said,
he wasn’t used to four-lane traffic back there in his “tin can” —as she called Austro.


We have podways, he’d told her, attempting to brag. Between modules. In modules.

Sure, she’d said. But they’re designated.

She meant regulated, which was true. Not every kid with a wild streak could hop in a pod and knock over people’s fences (if
Austro had fences) like kids back in her hometown apparently did for fun.


Dirtsiders.

He missed how she could drink him under the table and not break a sweat. He missed their banter.

But, well, that was before Hong Kong. And he had no real interest in talking to a girl who’d tossed him. They’d left things
amicably but with the understanding that they’d never hear from each other again.


“So after Shiri you’ve gone to—that.”

Sid meant Fara.

“Fara’s a good-time gam. We flirt, it doesn’t mean anything. Besides, she’s a good kisser.”

Sid smiled. “Have you been inoculated?”

Funny boy.

“I don’t think she’s safe,” Sid continued.

“You’re just paranoid.”

“It’s my job.” Sid laughed, to try and get him to smile or give away a clue. Sid was suspicious and he had a right to be,
but Ryan wasn’t going to feed into it. He couldn’t focus on that. The capsule of Silver was burning a hole in his pocket, he
wanted it so bad right about now.


But they had to wait at the levs, like you always had to wait on Austro, even if you were the son of Songlian Lau and had
a bodyguard who never let you walk the same route twice. Sixty thousand people on this station and some things no amount
of cred could buy.


Ten other people stood by the levs, a couple talking to each other, but most everyone gazed over at the holosphere that dropped
from the ceiling, hanging over the open quad. Rotating the Send news. Not that anything was particularly new. The Centralist
party was up in arms again (as if they ever lowered them) because the Annexationist majority in EarthHub wasn’t moving hard
or fast enough against the strits. The aliens and their human sympathizers were still (like they ever weren’t?) blowing up ships both merchant and military, not to mention stations scattered all through the Dragons and even some in
the Rim, though Austro never got hit—it was too far in and too well defended by the Rim Guard.


Lucky for the commerce.

Amazing what people believed. Flak grew like fungus, and nobody was better at blue-cheese headlines than the Centralists.
He knew from dinner-table conversation with EarthHub Joint Chief Admiral Grandpa that the strit attacks had actually decreased over the last few months and pirate activity had increased. But the Send never concentrated too closely
on pirates. They were bad for business. Merchants from the Spokes to the Rim who took the safe, longer leap routes to get
to ports delayed the exchange of goods and cred.


Plus aliens and their human symps made better enemies.

Not that regular humans didn’t already corner the market on craziness. Extremists were everywhere, not only in the government
or across the Demilitarized Zone.


Put them all on a moon, he’d told Admiral Grandpa one night during his first month on Earth. Away from any leap points, with
no weapons or ships, and let them fend for themselves. Strit, symp, and sulking govie alike.


Would that it was so easy, Grandpa said.

No, it was never so easy.

The war dragged on and malcontents flourished, from Hubcentral to the Dragons, a spinning galactic gyroscope of violent offenders
too wily to be caught.


Your father’s at the top of that list, some student politico at his university had shouted, pointing a finger.


Screw you, symp, he’d said back, before knocking the kid on his arse. That had gone over well with the dean.


January 30, 2197 EHSD flashed on the holosphere in red and Ryan stared for a second. He would be into his last semester if
he’d stayed in school. Weird that it was three months already since he’d left Earth and tried to reintegrate himself back
into the rhythm of his homestation. Unlike Earth’s days and nights, all it felt like here was one long, lethargic shift, a
sleepless hour that didn’t advance or retreat. A static army of time, coated in Silver.


He rubbed his eyes; they burned from fatigue even though it wasn’t yet midshift. A young woman was staring at the side of
his face, in his peripheral vision. He turned to glare at her. She said, in that tactless way people had when they thought they knew you just because your face was on the
Send: “You look terrible, Ryan.”


Using his given name, no less. He said, “I have insomnia. What’s your excuse?”

Sid murmured, “Ryan.”

The lev crowd all looked at him now, most of them affronted, minding his business.

The woman turned away and he slid his stare up to Sid, unapologetic. If people took liberties with him, why should he be polite?
Of course Ms. Mom Lau would bleat if a little item appeared on the SendTertain tomorrow about Rude Ryan Azarcon or some such
shit. She always wanted the proper face in public, but bugger it—this damn lev was never going to get here and his Silver
bullet was getting too warm in his pocket.


More people joined them at the bank of levs, a few of them children holding reflective ribbons of color left over from the
New Year celebration. Sid waved fingers at them and smiled and Ryan stared across the balcony to the other side of the promenade.
The lev doors opened eventually and they piled in, rode up in silence. He tried to ignore everyone else, but the people who
hadn’t witnessed his snark at the woman insisted on engaging him now that he couldn’t run. Nice to see you back, Ryan. How’s your mother, Ryan? We saw your father on the Send last week, Ryan.

His father must’ve liked that, he was sure. The pug producer of the unauthorized bio segment had even tried to dig some dirt
from Ryan himself, but Mom Lau screened those comms. Not that he would’ve said anything anyway. Left with no familial sources,
they’d gussied up the captain’s life by focusing on his wife and kid. Captain Cairo Azarcon of the deep-space carrier Macedon didn’t do publicity. He just did Austro’s Senior Public Affairs Officer Songlian Lau (all caps, baby), then left her on station with a child. That was the gist of the segment.


It was all bob. Bunch of bullshit.

Ryan didn’t let himself get pulled in to any conversations. Especially not about his father. Maybe they thought he was sulking
but he didn’t care and didn’t say good-bye when the lev opened on his floor.


He ignored Marine guard Perry outside the apartment door and went inside, while Sid lingered to talk to his opposite number.

Freedom.

Of a sort. Mom Lau came through the butterfly kitchen doors, a targeted missile. She was shorter than him, beautiful even
off-cam and to the eyes of a son, with a heart-shaped face and “sweet button nose”—coined by the TrendSend—which she’d unwittingly
passed to him (no gene-tampering involved in that bit of nightmare). Long dark hair and confident dark eyes. She looked younger
than her forty-some Standard years, thanks to suspended aging treatments.


He knew from her face that he’d forgotten to do something.

“I asked you to organize your room,” she said. “It’s been months since you’ve come back and it’s still a mess.”

The eons-old complaint of every mother from the Stone Age onward.

“Nobody goes into my room but me,” he said, a threat more than an observation, and headed that way across her translucent
marble foyer. It was lit from beneath and cast a white glow from wall to wall, like a stage.


“Ryan, your shoes! I just had the floors cleaned!”

“Sheez, Mom, go lie down or something.” He didn’t stop. The Silver capsule in his pocket was a smooth comfort at the tip of
his finger.


“Tim . . .” he heard her say to Sid, exasperated, then he shut the door on both of them and locked it.

He knew he was being childish and unfair. He shouldn’t treat her that way. But inertia was a funny thing.

He put his back against the door and slid down, dug into his pocket and pulled out the capsule. The air vent in the wall was
magnetic, so it took just a little prying before he could snake in an arm and feel around the dusty metal recess. He’d put
the injet there after Sid’s routine inspection of the premises earlier, and thankfully it was where he’d left it.


He thumbed open the loading tube, cracked the capsule with a bite, and shook out one 9mm round of transparent cylinder, enough
to last two pushes. The liquid drug inside was the color of molten silver, like its tunnel name. A pretty shade, almost like
the color of the walls in his kitchen. Zen silver, according to the Beautifix Design Interiors shop when his mother hired them to consult on the apartment. Zen Silver. That had a nice ring to it. In the cylinder it resembled a bullet. Dealers packaged them that way on purpose. Some dealers
colored the tapered ends in bronze, red, or gold, depending. Marks of quality.


Fara didn’t do any of that. Her Silver was a notoriously high quality. Pure. It was guaranteed to run through the cleanest
labs. Fara had a reputation among Austro’s elite, if you knew who to ask.


So Ryan Azarcon loaded the round into the injet and flattened the tube shut, priming it at the same time. Then he put the
narrow point against the vein in his arm and pressed the trigger.


He’d never tried Earth street drugs again, but his first time sailing spacer-brand Silver had been Tyler Coe’s fault. Tyler
hooked an arm around his neck at the vid premiere after-party a month ago, smiled for the cam—there’s one for the Send! he said—then whisked Ryan away to the bar with Sid trailing them like a loose leash. Tyler leaned down close to
Ryan’s cheek and Ryan smelled his sweet cocktail breath and felt it shoot into his ear to his brain like a spy bug. Tyler
said, You look like shit, Azarcon, what you been doing on that dirtball? Which was Tyler’s way of saying hello. Everybody
had to look worse than Tyler in Tyler’s world. Tyler was all about image. He had a nice image on the SendTertain but Ryan
knew better. He’d known Tyler since Austro Academy; Tyler was a couple years older than he, and Tyler had been the same hypocritical
flash whore then as he was now. But now he got paid big cred for it and he lived as large as Jupiter off the link sales.


Ryan had months of dark Hong Kong memories steeping in his system and no way to strain them out. From Delhi to D.C. he’d gone
looking for an exorcism or an excuse, but nothing. London had been a disaster. Sid was too close, his grandparents too concerned,
and school too all-consuming. He got on academic probation, then dropped out before they kicked him out—came home in shame,
despite counseling initiated by Admiral Grandpa, and faced his mother’s disappointment, his father’s long-distance reproach.
Not that they didn’t understand what he was going through. No, everybody understood, they said. Sid understood, Sid who’d fought in conflicts from Tibet
to Tel Aviv when he was younger than Ryan was now. Seeing bodies blown up was not normal by any standard, and even when you
were trained for it you were never prepared.


Ryan didn’t tell Tyler this, but Tyler was paid to be observant of human behavior and whispered in his ear, Let’s lose the
pole-ass and go somewhere. Which made Ryan think, with his five-drinks-later logic, that Tyler was hitting on him. Sid stood
behind them frowning but Ryan kind of waved an arm and beckoned Sid to the private room Tyler’s studio had rented along with the rest of the bijou club. Private rooms like this came equipped with expensive drinks and
food and people, if you only asked. Tyler had asked, at least for the first two. Sid did a look-through to make sure it wasn’t
planted with bombs or tripwires or whatever, and then Ryan shut the door, shut him out, and sank down on the big pink couch
for a breath of freedom.


He’d only been back on Austro for two months. It felt like a decade because it was back to routine—his mother harping, Sid
shadowing, the looks and the meedees and the reports on the Send: Ryan Azarcon drops out of Earth’s George Washington University, a year from graduating with honors from their Media and Public
Affairs program . . . Not only that, but his girlfriend had dumped him.


What would the captain think?

Tyler fiddled with the wall display and it shifted from its static black to an underwater Earthscape, swimming fishes and
floating plankton. Very soothing. Tyler turned up the music, grinding guitar and a heartbeat thrum from every wall that Ryan
felt down into his crotch. Ahh, nice? Tyler asked. Nice, he replied, with a buzzed smile. Tyler dislodged a champagne bottle
from the cold rack above the couch and poured them both glasses. It went down sweet and filled Ryan’s mouth with bubbly happiness.


It wasn’t like he got drunk a lot. Sid didn’t let him. But maybe Sid saw he needed something, because he and Mom Lau both
encouraged him to come out this night and deal with Tyler, even though they all knew Tyler wasn’t necessarily an outstanding
good influence. But Tyler had a reputation for being benignly social and Mom Lau and Sid both worried when Ryan spent all
his time locked behind his bedroom door. What deviant private acts were going on there? Not even Sid knew, even thoug